September 8, 1965
(Mother reads a few lines from “Savitri” which she prepares to translate into French. It is Savitri’s heart that speaks:)
The great stars burn with my unceasing fire
And life and death are both its fuel made.
Life only was my blind attempt to love:
Earth saw my struggle, heaven my victory.
(X. III . 638)
She says, Life and death are the fuel, then, In my blind attempt
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LIFE ONLY was my attempt to love. [[Mother later stressed again, “It’s not Life was only, but Life only.” ]] Because my attempt to love was blind, I limited it to life – but I won the victory in death.
It’s very interesting. (Mother repeats:)
Earth saw my struggle, heaven my victory.
Yet, earth should see the victory? The victory should be on earth, shouldn’t it?
Yes, but she couldn’t win the victory on earth because she lacked heaven – she couldn’t win the victory in life because she lacked death and she had to conquer death in order to conquer life.
That’s the idea. Unless we conquer Death, the victory isn’t won. Death must be vanquished, there must be no more death.
That’s very clear.
(silence)
According to what he says here, it is the principle of Love that is transformed into flame and finally into light. It isn’t the principle of Light that is transformed into flame when it materializes: it’s the flame that is transformed into light.
The great stars give light because they burn; they burn because they are under the effect of Love.
Love would be the original Principle?
That seems to be what he is saying.
I didn’t remember this passage. But I told you, my experience [The experience of the "great pulsations" of divine Love (in April, 1962). ]] is that the last thing as one rises – the last thing beyond light, beyond consciousness, beyond … – the last thing one reaches is love. “One,” this “one” is … it’s the “I” – I don’t know. According to the experience, it’s the last thing to manifest now in its purity, and it is the one that has the transforming power.
That’s what he appears to be saying here: the victory of Love seems to be the final victory.
(silence)
He said, Savitri, a Legend and a Symbol; it’s he who made it a
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symbol. It’s the story of the encounter of Savitri, the principle of Love, with Death; and it’s over Death that she won the victory, not in life. She could not win the victory in life without winning the victory over Death.
I didn’t know it was put so clearly here. I had read it, but only once.
It’s very interesting.
How many times, how many times have I seen that he had written down my experiences…. Because for years and years I didn’t read Sri Aurobindo’s books; it was only before coming here that I had read The Life Divine, The Synthesis of Yoga, and another one, too. For instance, Essays on the Gita I had never read, Savitri I had never read, I read it very recently (that is to say, some ten years ago, in 1954 or ’55). The book Sri Aurobindo on Himself and on the Mother I had never read, and when I read it, I realized what he wrote to people about me – I had no idea, he had never told me anything about it! … You see, there are lots of things that I had said while speaking to people – that I had said just like that, because they came (gesture from above) and I would say them – and I realized he had written them. So, naturally, I appeared to be simply repeating what he had written – but I had never read it! And now, it’s the same thing: I had read this passage from Savitri, but hadn’t noticed it – because I hadn’t had the experience. But now that I have had the experience, I see that he tells it.
It’s quite interesting.
Maybe we’ll have to reread Savitri?…
In fact, if we wanted to be really good, we would try to translate the whole of Savitri, wouldn’t we? What we are doing now with the end [Book X], we would do with all the rest. There is a part I tried to translate all alone, but it would be fun to do it together. We could try. Not for publication! Because there is immediately a debasing: everything that is published is debased, otherwise people don’t understand. We would do it for ourselves.
But it’s very interesting.
Just the other day I noted something down on the subject (Mother looks for a note, then reads it):
"Very rare and exceptional are the human beings
who can understand and feel divine Love, because
divine Love is free of attachment and of the need
to please the object loved."
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That was a discovery.
That’s why people don’t understand; for them, love is so much like this (Mother intertwines the fingers of her two hands) that they cannot even feel or believe that they love if there isn’t an attachment like this (same gesture). And necessarily, the consequence of attachment is the will, the desire, the need to please the object of one’s love.
If you take away the attachment and the need to please, people scratch their heads and wonder if they love. And it’s only when you take away those two things that divine Love begins!
This, mon petit, we’ll talk about again, it’s a revelation.
That’s why they don’t understand and that’s why they can’t feel it.
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